New research: Changing academic culture, from diversity work to STEM reform
Recent works by Pullias researchers tackle big topics in higher education, such as promoting racial diversity and performing diversity work on college and university campuses, addressing the influence of corporate culture on academic culture, and adapting to changing faculty trends. In addition, new papers tackle STEM education, from summer bridge programs to large-scale reform.
Read the abstracts and excerpts for these papers and find out more about the projects that inspired them:
Gehrke, S., & Kezar, A. (2018). Perceived outcomes associated with engagement in and design of faculty communities of practice focused on STEM reform. Research in Higher Education, 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-018-9534-y
This study examines how involvement in four undergraduate faculty communities of practice is associated with faculty perceiving they improved in individual practices related to STEM reform. It is informed by the communities of practice and faculty change literature and utilizes data gathered through a survey of community members (n = 2503). The findings reveal engagement experiences and aspects of community design associated with three outcomes—learning and improving practice, developing skills for leadership and change, and networking. These findings contribute to recommendations for designing future STEM reform initiatives.
Sean Gehrke is the director of institutional research at Everett Community College and a former research assistant at the USC Pullias Center for Higher Education. Adrianna Kezar is a professor of higher education at the University of Southern California and co-director of the Pullias Center for Higher Education. Find out more about their project, Achieving Scale for STEM Reform.
Kezar, A. (2018). A new vision for the professoriate. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning. 50(3-4), 84-87. https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2018.1509616
The professoriate is at a crossroads, some would say a crisis. For several decades, there has been increasing criticism, first of the tenure track system and now at the rise in adjunct and non-tenure track faculty. Few believe the professoriate is organized in ways to meet institutional missions, deliver educational quality, or meet the goals of student success.
The critiques suggest that tenure-track models overemphasize a very narrow definition of research, discount the importance of teaching and education, and do not encourage or provide accountability for quality teaching or improvement of teaching. Yet, most higher education institutions are focused on education rather than research, even as they are staffed by professionals without the socialization, priorities, and experience to be educators. Furthermore, maintaining tenure track positions can commit institutions to lifetime wages and to fields of study where enrollments may barely exist. Without significantly shifting the tenure model, the traditional emphasis on research; a narrow view of scholarship; devaluation of teaching; lack of accountability to improve as an educator over time; and lack of some flexibility for institutions in terms of hiring and finances the current model has and will continue to fail to support quality education or student success.
Adrianna Kezar is a national expert on changing faculty trends and the project lead of the Delphi Project on the Changing Faculty and Student Success. Find resources and tools to support adjunct, contingent and non-tenure-track faculty on the Delphi Project website.
Kitchen, J. A., Sadler, P. & Sonnert, G. (2018). The Impact of summer bridge programs on college students’ STEM career aspirations. Journal of College Student Development 59(6), 698-715.
The impact of college STEM summer bridge programs is not well understood. This nationwide study pooled data from 27 colleges and universities involved in the NSF’s STEM Talent Expansion Program to model changes in college career aspirations for 2 groups: 383 STEM summer bridge program participants and 15,464 controls. Propensity weighted modeling revealed that college STEM summer bridge programs double the odds that students plan to pursue a STEM career, compared with students without program exposure. We found this to be true across a range of demographics and student background characteristics. Implications for college educators, practitioners, and policymakers are discussed.
Joseph Kitchen is a postdoctoral research associate at the Pullias Center for Higher Education in the USC Rossier School of Education. Read more of his research on STEM summer bridge programs.
Liera, R., & Dowd, A. C. (2018). Faculty learning at boundaries to broker racial equity. The Journal of Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2018.1512805
On many college campuses, faculty are being called on to act as change agents for racial equity. Through narrative inquiry analysis using the theoretical constructs of boundary crossing and boundary objects, this case study examined learning among faculty (n = 12) who attempted to broker structural changes at their universities through participation in action research. The findings illustrate that boundary negotiation across the “silos” of academic departments and administrative offices to promote racial equity involves perspective taking (regarding current norms and discourse) and perspective making (about equity as a legitimate institutional goal). These findings contribute to the literature on faculty agency and organizational learning for racial equity in higher education by identifying boundary objects as cultural tools that facilitate faculty learning and agency.
Román Liera is a postdoctoral research associate in the Pullias Center for Higher Education at the USC Rossier School of Education.
Porter, K. B., Posselt, J. R., Reyes, K., Slay, K. E. & Kamimura, A. (2018). Burdens and benefits of diversity work: emotion management in STEM doctoral students. Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education. 9(2), 127-143. https://doi.org/10.1108/SGPE-D-17-00041
As part of the broader effort to diversify higher education in the USA, many science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) doctoral programs are deeply engaged in diversity work – an array of formal activities and practices meant to boost the representation of women and students of color. This paper aims to examine how underrepresented doctoral students in high-diversity STEM PhD programs contribute to diversity work in their programs.
Julie Posselt, an assistant professor of higher education in the USC Rossier School of Education, is an expert in graduate education.
Human agency is increasingly vulnerable in systems of higher education that have fully absorbed neoliberal philosophy and practice. Focused on institutional profit, competitive policy makers and professors in such systems often lose sight of the fragility and value of human well-being (Keashly & Neuman, 2010; Lynch, 2010; Olive & Cangemi, 2015). Far too often, corporate culture trumps human dignity, healthy relationships and civic engagement in the twenty-first century university (Giroux, 2015; Hamer & Lang, 2015). The result is an entrenched bureaucracy, diminished collegiality and the abuse of vulnerable academics, in particular those who are early career, adjunct and/or casual laborers (Giroux, 2016; Osei-Kofi, 2012). Untenured scholars are especially impacted, as their capacity to confront irrational, uninformed or malicious decisions by an academic oligarchy is curtailed by fear of reprisal and/or the termination of their contracts (Schrecker, 2012). As faculty get silenced by the ‘University Inc.’ (Washburn, 2005), disadvantaged students lose an important voice for advocacy against marginalization and vulnerability (Oleksiyenko, 2015). Fear of criticism has become particularly evident, insofar as academic oligarchies have hegemonized reputational capital (Lynch, 2015) and fetishized ‘celebrity’ scholars, centers and departments (Nixon, 2010), while neglecting the quality of teaching and learning across greater systems (Clotfelter, 2014). The trend has spread worldwide.
William G. Tierney is a University Professor and Wilbur-Kieffer Professor of Higher Education in the USC Rossier School of Education and the co-director of the Pullias Center for Higher Education.